LUCKNOW ,The Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh is set to start purchase of paddy on Minimum Support Price (MSP) from the farmers of Uttar Pradesh from October 1 for the year 2023-2024 and necessary guidelines have been issued in this regard.

It is mandatory for the farmers of the state to register on the Food and Logistics department's website, or the mobile app by August 31, to be able to sell their produce to the government, said a government spokesman.

As per the guidelines issued by the department, paddy will be procured only from the registered farmers. The state government has also issued a toll-free number to address problems of registered farmers and facilitate hassle-free sale of their produce. Besides, farmers can contact the District Food Marketing Officer of their city, Regional Marketing Officer of Tehsil or Marketing Inspector of the block to seek help.

The state government has kept the support price of paddy at Rs 2,183 per quintal for common paddy and Rs 2203 per quintal for Grade A paddy for the session 2023-24.

The government has also announced region-wise dates for procurement of paddy. For example, the purchase of paddy in western Uttar Pradesh and Bundelkhand will take place from October 1 to January 31, 2024. It includes Lucknow division (Hardoi, Sitapur, Lakhimpur) as well as Bareilly, Moradabad, Meerut, Saharanpur, Agra, Aligarh and Jhansi divisions.

Similarly, paddy will be bought from farmers of eastern UP from November 1 this year to February 29, 2024. This includes, Lucknow division (Lucknow, Raebareli, Unnao), and Chitrakoot, Kanpur, Ayodhya, Devipatan, Basti, Gorakhpur, Azamgarh, Varanasi, Mirzapur and Prayagraj divisions. This time, the number of paddy purchase centres is being increased and a plan is being prepared to operate about 4,000 purchasing centres of the Food Department and other purchasing agencies this year.

The state government has also made arrangements to pay the price of paddy procured from farmers to their Aadhaar linked bank accounts directly. For this, it is necessary that the farmers' bank accounts are seeded with Aadhaar and activated by the bank with the map on the NPCI portal.